


Unwind

by antumbral



Category: Gymnastics RPF, Olympics RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Explicit Consent, Gymnastics, M/M, Morning Sex, careful sex, competitions, winning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:49:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antumbral/pseuds/antumbral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Competitions mean muscle burn and frustration, but the aftermath of competitions means hot showers and careful touches from someone who understands. The morning after the night before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwind

**Author's Note:**

> I'm reposting old work here, so this is from just after the 2008 Olympics. Written as a gift for a_minor_third in the LJ olympic_slash community's ficathon.

He’s out of chalk. Fabian hates running out of chalk, not because it really matters – he can always use the stuff the meet supplies – but still. It’s the principle of the thing, the superstition. All those months of work, and here he is at Worlds, running out of chalk. It doesn’t bode well. 

Whistles and cat-calls from the stands when his name gets called on floor exercise. He sticks the routine, it’s a good score. More than a tenth over Yang Wei. He’s still got a chance, then; he can extend that lead on high bar, especially if Yang flubs an apparatus or two. Focus, focus. Forget Yang, forget floor apparatus, on to the next. Pommel, rings. More whistles, the crowd always likes rings. His father claps him on the shoulder and then he’s up for high bar.

Coincidentally, Jon Horton drew the rotation just before him, but Fabian can’t say what Jon’s score might have been. He can say that it took forever to post. He likes Jon; he _likes_ Jon, but there’s only room in his mind for the upcoming routine. Room for Jon will come later. Fabian stands in front of the bar, pacing, waiting, rubbing chalk – the bad kind of meet chalk – into his hands. Jon’s score finally, _finally_ posts, and it’s Fabian’s turn. 

His father boosts him up to the bar, but he doesn’t even feel the hands at his waist, not really. The world collapses in and shrinks to the bar beneath his grips and the tension in his arms. A half swing to get momentum up, then two giant swings - _swoosh swoosh_ of wind and gravity like solid hands tugging him around - before the first release, the Kolman it’s taken him a year and a half to get reliable. After the Kolman his body takes over, _swoosh_ to handstand, release, release, fall into the rhythm that the bar hums. If he overthinks it he’ll get it wrong, so the Tkatchev releases and the Gienger come too fast for his brain to consciously direct. Then it’s _swoosh_ -handstand- _swoosh_ -handstand, and a jackknifed giant swing carries him into the inexorable pause of air and movement that’s his dismount. It feels like forever to complete the rotation, but he lands, rocks forwards, then back, and sticks. 

The crowd may have lit up then. He can’t actually tell, he only has eyes for the scoreboard. It stays stubbornly dark, and his father reminds him to breathe as they wait. Finally, it flickers into life, registers neon and stark: 16.025. Highest in the meet. One of the best in the world. The feeling glows in him, lights him up from his chest outward until he’s floating on it. 

A movement catches his eye from just behind the scoreboard, familiar faces in the crowd. He waves, then forgets them. Vault. Parallel. The euphoria lasts through the medal ceremonies, where the news anchors talk about his coming of age and newfound maturity. Maybe he’ll shed the reputation for inconsistency this year. It could happen.

He doesn’t shed the lightning-blaze glow until he’s back in the hotel room, stripping out of the gym pants and ducking into the shower to let the spray beat the stress out of his shoulders. He leans his forehead against the tile and tries to relax.

“You looked good out there. I got a chance to watch you on high bar.” Jon’s voice comes from behind him a few seconds before Jon’s hands find his shoulders, kneading at the stubborn knots. Fabian hadn’t even heard him open the door. He flexes back into his grip, then flinches when Jon finds a particularly tender spot.

“I _was_ good out there,” Fabian mutters, and the steam clings thick in his throat and opens his lungs. 

Jon steps forward to plaster himself to Fabian’s back, wrapping his arms around Fabian’s waist. The water sluices down around them and turns to steam where it hits the tiles, drifting back up to bead on their skin. “Yeah. You earned this one.”

“It’s just silver.”

“Mmm, _only_ second best in the world.” He can hear the smile in Jon’s voice, a twin to his own because he hasn’t stopped smiling yet either. Jon gets it. 

“You were good, too. I don’t think people expected it.” He turns his head to nuzzle Jon’s forehead where it’s resting on his shoulder.

“I’m like the Spanish Inquisition,” says Jon, and Fabian wrinkles his forehead in confusion. Jon glances up and brushes a kiss along the curve of his jaw. “Don’t ask. I’ll make you watch the movie some day.”

Fabian nods and stretches forward again, content between the icy tiles and steaming water. He feels like he can breathe again, like the strings that have been holding him up have finally been cut and he doesn’t have a solid bone in his body. 

Fabian sways back and lets Jon take his weight, propping himself up against Jon’s steady chest and closing his eyes. “Come on,” Jon says, turning off the water. “Bed.”

They stagger into the bedroom together, and Fabian flops into the comforter, eyes closed, fully prepared to go to sleep immediately. Jon crawls up to hover over him on hands and knees.

“Exactly how tired are you?”

Fabian cracks one eye open. “Tired.” His voice slurs with it, accent thicker when he’s exhausted. “What’d you have in mind?”

“I dunno. I thought we could celebrate.” Jon leans down and kisses him, licks into his mouth and nips gently at his lower lip.

Fabian’s hands drift automatically to his hips, pulling him down and settling him closer. “Can I take a rain check?” he asks, muffled into the hollow of Jon’s throat. Jon’s weight and heat over him feel good, like the most solid kind of blanket in the world.

“Tomorrow morning?” 

Fabian hums sleepily into his collarbone. 

“Okay.” Jon settles down beside him, then reaches out and traces two fingers over his eyebrows, down the bridge of his nose, across his lips. Fabian opens his eyes again, but neither of them says anything. The touches continue, drift to ears, neck, shoulders, then back up to linger drowsy over his mouth. Eventually Fabian reaches up and twines their fingers, then presses a kiss into Jon’s palm.

“Tomorrow. I promise.”

“Okay,” says Jon. “Yes.”

*

He wakes to sleepy kisses, Jon’s breath moist and slightly sour from sleep. 

“Good morning,” Jon says, and kisses him again. Fabian opens his mouth and closes his eyes, letting Jon do all the work.

“Morning.” His mouth isn’t working right yet, the word slips out fuzzy and mussed.

“It’s tomorrow,” says Jon, hopefully, and Fabian smiles against his lips. 

“Yeah? You sure?”

“Think so.” Jon presses down into him, and Fabian can feel that he’s hard already. 

Fabian hums agreement in the back of his throat, and rolls over onto his stomach. The sheets are good for hotel sheets, really soft, and he buries his face in the pillow. Jon nibbles at his spine on the crest of his neck. “Come on,” he says, pressing subtly back into Jon’s body. 

“You sure?” Jon asks. 

“Yeah, come on. Wanna feel you.” He might have said that last part in German. He’s still half asleep, he can’t be held responsible for things as picky as language. Jon seems to understand anyway.

“Okay,” he murmurs into the soft hollow beneath Fabian’s ear. “Fabi, okay.”

Jon pulls away and there’s the snick of a cap that’s probably lube. Fabian relaxes, lets himself melt into the sheets, yawns. 

A hand strokes down his flank and finds the curve of his ass, edging closer until wet fingers are pressing at his hole. “Wait, no,” he says, and Jon freezes. “Don’t need it. Just want you.”

There’s a moment of hesitation, then the fingers retreat. Jon’s mouth nuzzles between his shoulders. “Take a deep breath ,” Jon whispers, and he obeys. He can feel the head of Jon’s cock nudge against him, and when he lets the breath out, Jon presses inside. With no stretching for preparation and just the lube on Jon’s cock to ease the way, they go slowly out of necessity. Fabian’s breath shudders in, all jagged edges in his throat. 

“Shhh,” Jon soothes, working in with tiny thrusts and slow withdrawals. It feels like _too much_ , not that it hurts, it’s just too raw, too close, too startling. Fabian is trembling through his shoulders and he tries to breathe through it, presses his face into the sheets and seeks out the scent of where Jon had been sleeping: faintly spicy with the aftershave he always uses. 

“You okay?” Jon asks when he’s completely inside. He’s laying full length along Fabian’s body, mouth pressed against the wing of his shoulder and hands tucked under his chest to gather him close. He nods, and knows Jon can feel the way he trembles every time Jon moves the slightest little bit. 

“Tell me the truth,” Jon says, in the serious, commanding voice he sometimes uses when he thinks he needs to rally his team during a gym meet. “Do you want to stop?” 

Fabian shakes his head again.

“I need you to say it.”

“Stopp nicht,” he whispers, leaning back to rub his cheek against Jon’s hair.

“English, Fabi, I need to understand you.”

Fabian blinks, because he sometimes slips to German during sex, but he hadn’t thought he was that far inside his head yet. “It’s okay,” he slurs out. “I want this. Want to feel you.” He reaches down and finds Jon’s hand, twining his fingers through it reassuringly. Jon twitches inside him and his breathing stutter-stops at the slight pressure and friction. “Come on,” he says.

Jon hesitates for a moment, then withdraws completely and for an awful moment Fabian thinks he’s changed his mind, but then he hears the snick of the bottle again. In a few seconds, Jon is back behind him, re-slicked, and he wraps his fingers back through Fabian’s before pushing back inside with one brutal thrust, not holding back on the power in his chest and thighs. It lights up every nerve Fabian’s got, and he pushes back into it, grateful, muffling his low groan against his bicep. 

“Bitte,” he whispers, and Jon laughs. Fabian feels it as a low rumble at the base of his spine, sweet counterpoint to the steady rhythm of Jon’s hips.

He knows what Jon looks like when he fucks, and his mind supplies the picture for him now: supple twist of spine and ripple of muscle to set the pace, soft, pleased grin and sparkling eyes. Jon laughs again behind him, deep in his throat, and Fabian knows he’s not laughing at anything in particular, he’s just happy, part of the irrepressible optimism that makes Jon who he is. It’s part of the reason they’re doing this now, a big part of what attracted him to Jon in the first place. Jon’s mouth whispers across his shoulder blade and he sighs. 

“What do you need?” Jon asks, because he’s nothing if not considerate in bed. 

Fabian shakes his head, “Nothing,” and Jon kisses behind his ear. He’d come faster with a hand on him and sometimes he’ll ask for it, but he’s not in an urgent mood and given enough time he can come just from this, from the feel of Jon inside him and the slight friction of the sheets. 

In response, Jon hitches his hips up a little bit to get a better angle, and Fabian lets himself relax and sink down into the bed like a puddle. Jon’s chest is pressed up against his back for maximum contact, and Fabian feels surrounded, safe. The pleasure builds between them without much effort on Fabian’s part, and his orgasm, when it comes, is soft as sunshine and leaves him quaking. Jon follows a few minutes later, his face pressed into the curve of Fabian’s shoulder. The feeling of him pressed deep and quaking is so good that Fabian feels the orgasm like a ghost in his own nerves, like if his body hadn’t already wrung itself out he could come again. 

Jon settles down on top of him with a sigh and shows no sign of moving any time soon. Fabian is strangely okay with that, though he wonders if they’d get stuck together if they fell back asleep, and that doesn’t sound like fun. He nudges backwards, and Jon makes a complaining noise but rolls off him. Fabian scoots over away from the wet spot and turns on his back. Jon throws one leg over his and nestles down against his side.

“We should go to the gym,” says Fabian, more out of reflex than genuine inclination. Jon makes an incoherent noise against his chest, and settles more comfortably. The only way he could be more obvious is to fake a snore.

“Lazybones,” says Fabian and closes his eyes. 

There’s silence in the room for a moment, then, “This doesn’t count as tomorrow,” Jon says.

“What?” Fabian cracks one eye open and glares mildly down at him.

“This doesn’t count as tomorrow. It’s not tomorrow until you’ve woken up and gotten out of bed.” There’s a momentary pause, in which they both consider Jon’s logic.

“Yeah, okay,” Fabian says finally, and drifts back off to sleep with the soft smell of Jon’s skin around him.


End file.
